The present invention relates to a system and method for editing or modifying 3D animations. In particular, the present invention relates to a non-linear editing system and method for editing and/or modifying 3D animations.
Non-linear editing (NLE) systems are known for video (2D) and audio (sometimes referred to as xe2x80x9c1Dxe2x80x9d) systems. NLE systems for video and/or audio include systems manufactured by AVID, Quantel and others. Non-linear video editing systems allow a user to join, arrange and/or modify digital or digitized source information to create a final cut, or edit, for rendering to appropriate storage media or output. The systems are non-linear in that the sources are not generally limited to being accessed in a linear manner, but instead permit random access. For example, the last three seconds of a ten second digital video source can be accessed without accessing the first seven seconds, or individual frames in the digital video can be accessed and/or combined as desired. Non-linear audio editing systems allow a user to easily and efficiently manipulate digital or digitized audio sources to produce a desired final output, often referred to as a final edit or xe2x80x9ccutxe2x80x9d.
In practice, an NLE system for video can, for example, be used to construct the video portion of a television advertisement for a new model of car, by connecting digitized source video of the new car driving on a country road, digital source video of a driver in the car and digitized source video of the car in a wind test tunnel with engineers standing about it. An NLE system for audio can be used to create an audio soundtrack for this advertisement, comprising a selection of classical music, in digital form, mixed with a narrator""s voice-over, also in digital form, discussing the features of the car and various sound effects sources which are also mixed, at appropriate time points, with the music and narration sources. The video and audio final edits are then rendered to an appropriate sink, such as a VTR, RAID array, or a monitor, to obtain the finished commercial.
NLE editors represent the available sources (video or audio) as objects in a graphical user interface (GUI), the objects commonly being referred to as clips, which are positioned and/or manipulated with respect to a time line for the edit. Various effects, such as fades, dissolves, wipes, blends, etc. can be applied to the clips to obtain the final edit.
Known techniques for editing 3D animations have comprised the rendering of the 3D animation to 2D media (video) which is then edited in a conventional manner, such as with the above-described NLE. The 2D media rendered from the 3D animation is treated as any other 2D source material, such as digital video, and can be combined with such other source material, as desired by the director.
If the director requires a change to the 2D rendering of the 3D animation, for example to have a character walk past a fixed background at a faster rate, or to have the contents of the 3D animation composited together in a different order, the director must instruct an animation artist as to what is desired and the animation artist will then invoke the required animation tools to modify the animation and to re-render it to 2D media. This new 2D material would then be provided to the director to replace the previous material.
While these techniques have provided reasonable results in the past, it is desired to have a method and system of editing and/or modifying 3D animations which is easier to employ, more efficient than prior art editing techniques and which provides a flexible creative environment for directors, editors and artists.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a novel system and method of editing and modifying 3D animations.
The present invention provides a method and system for editing and modifying animation information which reduces or removes the barriers between a director and the source material he is working with. Conventionally, with 2D video, which can include 2D renderings of 3D animations, NLE systems are used to edit existing source information. Essentially, the director creating the final edit is only able to select, arrange and apply effects to source information which has already been created. If additional source information is required, the director must undertake to have such additional information created, by filming new scenes, etc. and there is thus a barrier between the director and his work. The present inventors have determined that an NLE which is used to edit source material from 3D animations need not be so limited and that the barrier experienced with such conventional systems can be mitigated. Specifically, the present inventors have created a system and method for the editing and modification of 3D animations which allows an NLE system to integrate the 2D representations which the director is dealing with to the 3D world of the animations. As described below, with the present invention the director or other user of the NLE system can edit and manipulate both 2D renderings of 3D animations in a conventional manner and can also edit, manipulate and re-render those 3D animations as necessary.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer implemented method for creating and modifying an edit comprising at least 3D animation information, comprising the steps of the user selecting an element from a set of available elements, the element representing 3D animation information which includes at least one parameter, such as a start position, end position, animation speed, etc. The selected element is represented to the user as a clip object which the user can position in a graphical display of the computer relative to a time line. The size of the clip object in the graphical display, relative to the time line corresponds to a duration which is applied to appropriate ones of the parameters in the element and the edges of the clip object relative to the time line represent a start time and an end time each of which are also applied to appropriate ones of the parameters of the element. The computer accesses the animation information, in accordance with the information applied to the parameters, to create the edit by compositing together each element. Modifications to the edit can be achieved by the user repositioning and/or resizing the clip objects, the computer applying the corresponding changes to the appropriate parameters and re-compositing the edit, and by removing, adding or substituting elements which will be composited into the edit.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer implemented non-linear editing system for creating and modifying edits comprising at least 3D animations, comprising: a storage device to store elements including animation information and parameters which relate to the animation information; a computer operatively connected to the storage device to access the elements; one or more output devices to display to a user a graphical user interface of an NLE, including a time line, and to display the result of an edit produced with one or more of the stored elements which are composited together to form the edit. The system also includes at least one user input device with which the user can: select at least one element from a list of said elements stored on said storage device; define the positioning, relative to the time line, of a clip object representing the selected element, the start time, end time and duration of the animation produced from the element being determined by the positioning and sizing of the clip object relative to the time line. The computer accesses each element in correspondence with the positioning and sizing of its respective clip object, and composites the elements together to produce the edit. When a user repositions and/or resizes one or more clip objects, the changes to the start time, end time and duration of the elements corresponding to the changes made to the clips are applied the appropriate parameters of the elements and the computer re-accesses and composites the elements together according to the new values of the parameters.